


days gone bye

by sky_reid



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Character Study, Depression, Drugs, M/M, Relationship Study, Rough Sex, Self-Destruction, Unhealthy Relationships, and some vaaaaaaaguely suicidal thoughts but like very vaguely, and stuff, dubious consent mostly due to being under influence, lots of headcanons, or rather, thinky thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-14 22:06:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2204739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_reid/pseuds/sky_reid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he remembers how they used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	days gone bye

**Author's Note:**

> i've only been in this fandom for like two weeks i have no idea what i'm doing help me what is going on
> 
>  ~~i haven't written rpf in like 7 years and i've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with it and i don't remember being this nervous about posting a fic in like forever soooo anon oops i'm a coward~~ i've done worse than write rpf after all
> 
> anyway this turned out a lot darker than i'd originally intended but it's still loosely based on some of my headcanons for these idiots and idk if i'm pleased with it, but i don't hate it????
> 
> sooo, um, hello new fandom????

 

_days gone bye_

 

He wonders sometimes how he could ever have gone for even a day in the same building as Harry and not even notice him. It seems surreal now that they practiced just a few rows from each other and never really spoke, that somehow his legs didn't magically take him to Harry's room and the place in Harry's bed and heart and life he feels he should always have occupied, that there was a time when he didn't feel this gravitational pull towards Harry. He wishes, perhaps stupidly, that they'd met earlier, the first day of bootcamp, the auditions even, just for those few extra borrowed days.

 

It feels silly to think of himself and Harry as over. It feels silly to use past tense. It feels silly to act like Harry's no longer there, like they are nothing more than colleagues, bandmates, like they can't both still feel it, that bond they share.

 

And yet he still says things like _we used to_ and _back when we were_ and _there was that_. In time it becomes the only way he ever talks about them. About him and Harry. There's no them anymore, not really. One day he thinks he could get used to that. (Maybe.)

 

~*~

 

They talk about it sometimes, because they can't leave well enough alone. When they're both the perfect combination of drunk, high and reckless Harry will say, “Do you ever think about it? About us?” Louis won't say anything, just run his finger over the rim of his nearly empty glass or pick at the seam of the joint they're still sharing. “If maybe we could've made it? If we were wrong?” And Louis will have so many answers to that – _all the time_ or _why would I, it's over now_ and _made it to an early grave maybe_ and _wrong in having this conversation_ – but he won't say anything, won't even look at Harry before he stands up and walks away.

 

~*~

 

He can't forget, is the thing.

 

He finds an unfenced pitch and kicks at the goal for hours on end until his legs burn so much he literally can't stand anymore and he falls to his knees on the cold dewy grass and he remembers. He drinks and smokes and takes colourful pills and combines them all until he passes out and he remembers. He stands in the street on snowy December nights until the chatter of his teeth is so loud in his ears that it drowns out the traffic and he remembers. He fucks countless boys and girls and everything in between and he still remembers as vividly as ever.

 

The smiles just for him. The look in Harry's eyes when he first wakes up in the morning. The touch of Harry's fingers on his fevered skin. The words whispered just for him. The butterflies in his stomach every time Harry smiles.

 

He misses the simpler time when they were just some boys on a singing competition no one outside of Britain would even care about, when they could joke and laugh and touch and hug without looking around to check if someone was filming because it didn't matter. When he could wake up in Harry's arms and trade lazy kisses and no one cared and no one knew. He misses the barely hidden glances, the blush on Harry's cheeks, the awkward moments when they weren't sure if they'd said too much, the hesitant touches they couldn't tell the other wanted. He hated it back then when he didn't quite know what to do, when they made beginners' mistakes, clumsy hands gripping too tightly and teeth sinking where they shouldn't, but he looks at it now with rose-tinted glasses and he thinks, _they were happy then_.

 

There was a time he thought it was just a silly crush. He wishes he had been right.

 

He even misses the hard times, stolen brushes of hands in public that they were not allowed, being separated by people standing between them but still only having eyes for each other. He misses how Harry would hold him at night, naked and sweaty and warm and cramped in a bunk far, far too small, how he would tell him that everything would be alright. Harry believed in them so, _so much_ back then, thought they were stronger than anything thrown at them, that it didn't matter what they had to do in public, that the pressure couldn't get to them because they loved each other and that was enough.

 

Even then, Louis knew it was the end. He wishes he had been wrong.

 

~*~

 

Whoever decided that grief came in neat little stages you can tick off a list before you're miraculously _fine_ was absolutely full of it in Louis's (not so) humble opinion. Because he yells and he wakes up wondering why his bed is empty, he thinks about quitting and he screams and curses and shuts doors, he curls on the floor and cries for hours and he calls to the empty kitchen for breakfast, he reads Wikipedia pages about legally binding contracts and he locks himself in his room and doesn't leave for days. He's a chaotic mess of feelings he can't untangle from each other. Sometimes he feels _too much_ , a ticking bomb of emotions waiting to explode, and other times he stares at a wall and feels nothing at all. There's no phases, no clear-cut lines, no linear progression from anger to denial to bargaining to depression; it's more like anger to denial back to anger to bargaining to denial to depression to anger to depression again, each stage more fleeting than the next, each transition more unexpected.

 

He's at anger again when he runs for what feels like hours until he pulls a muscle in his thigh. He tells no one and acts like everything's fine and wonders if that means denial has set in or if he's bargaining, taking the physical pain instead of the emotional one. No one notices for a while until Harry, of course it would be Harry, walks up to him and asks, eyes serious and a hand on Louis's shoulder, “What's going on?” and that's when he knows it's anger again because Louis wants to punch him. He swallows too many painkillers that night, doesn't wonder if he's gonna wake and thinks that he's ready for acceptance to finally come, even if it is just as temporary as everything else.

 

~*~

 

He drinks. When he's not sure he can spell _annihilation_ anymore, he calls Niall and asks him for something stronger than alcohol. When he's not sure which word he uses to check if he's sober anymore, he goes to Harry. Harry is sprawled over a deck chair, limbs loose and spread out, eyes glassy. He's high and relaxed and he smiles at Louis and Louis still feels like smiling back, muscle memory kicking in like they haven't drifted so far apart. Louis teases him without mercy and without filter, pokes at all the right wrong buttons, says all the right wrong things, until he gets a rise out of Harry. Harry doesn't hit him, Louis doesn't think he ever could, but it's a damn near thing. As Harry walks away with his hands clenched into fists, Louis is viciously pleased that at least he can still _hurt_ Harry, at least they still know each other enough for that.

 

It doesn't matter, they don't remember in the morning. Small mercies.

 

~*~

 

They fuck after a concert somewhere in America (the days and places are starting to blur in Louis's hazy mind). It's wrong and it's stupid, Harry has drunk models to kiss and Louis has a girlfriend to pretend he loves in a fake-it-till-you-make-it kind of way, a relationship easier than this one to get back to, and it's so, _so stupid_ and Harry drags him out of the humid club and pushes him against the rough brick wall of the dark alley behind it with strong hands and unfocused eyes. Louis gives into it, doesn't put up a fight and lets Harry pull at his clothes and bite at his lips and hold his wrists painfully.

 

It's quick and dirty and rough, it's Harry's thigh between his legs and Harry grunting in his ear and Harry getting him off with a dry hand, it's pain more than pleasure, wholly unsatisfying and nothing like how it used to be, wrong angles and wrong moves and wrong everything. Louis almost wants to laugh at how wrong, how _stupid_ it is. It gets stuck somewhere in his chest, a nasty, bitter feeling when it dawns on him just how much they just don't know each other anymore.

 

Harry leaves him there, panting and barely standing on his own, dick out and come stains on his shirt. He's not sure what it's supposed to mean, if it's a reminder or a goodbye. Harry always thought of this as a break for them. Louis never thought they could go back from this.

 

They don't talk about it. Louis doesn't know if Harry doesn't remember or doesn't care.

 

~*~

 

He looks at the white powder staining the smooth glass of the coffee table in front of him and doesn't feel anything. He looks at his hands, their lines blurred and trembling a little and doesn't feel anything. He looks at Harry, drinking, laughing, flirting on the other side of the room and doesn't feel anything.

 

Maybe this is what acceptance feels like.

 


End file.
